Surrey Punjab Dhaba — Restaurant in Surrey

BOYCOTT THIS PLACE. I would give this restaurant no stars if I could. For a little bit of backstory, as an east Indian who eats from various east Indian food establishments I can tell you that I have never had a worse experience. To start off with, ordering any food with a different spice level can be tricky and can be done wrong by both the customer and the restaurant. Now making sure that when the customer says "spicy", most establishments will double check saying "medium or hot"? and go on with the order. On this particular occasion however no one double checked and the daal I ordered was too spicy to eat. I'm not one to be picky, if the heat level is a bit too high I can tolerate it and eat but it felt like someone dumped a cup of ghost chilli powder into it, uneatable. So as any sane person, I call the restaurant to let them know about what happened, and I was greeted with the rudest employee, yelling at me for not knowing what spice is, not listening to what I had to say, saying it wasn't her fault. Know having worked in the food industry before I can understand that yes, you just got on shift, it isn't your fault, however screaming through the phone is no answer. She tells me that the manager will call me back after about half and hour and so I wait. 45 minutes go by and no call, so I call back and get the manager who I later found was the owner. The conversation was no different where he said that the reason for the high spice is because most people complain that the spice is not there enough. I said I understood because I really do and I must have been an odd ball. So I explained my reasoning too, how I've been to other restaurants like Mahek (amazing restaurant) and that usually they tailor towards a lesser spice and I assumed the same for this establishment, hence saying "spicy". He goes on to tell me that they are dine-in restaurants, not really take out like theirs, which now looking back is kind of funny because they have booths to eat in the "dhaba" which doesn't make it a "take out only" place as he said. So he says well now that I've wasted his 6 minutes and 2 other calls, making him lose so much business, what I would like. Now my dinner had been ruined at this point, and I simply asked for a replacement the following morning. He gets aggravated at this, yelling at me saying I have wasted his time and that "aren't I tired of doing this so many times coming to Canada, getting replacements from restaurants" which is absurd because I was born and raised in Canada and have never complained against a restaurant before because I'm not one to give anyone a hard time. I simply tell him then that it was just too spicy and that no one double checked what I had meant. He gives me the analogy that "if you told me to hit you, there's no gauge to how hard you want ti be hit", again, is that anyway to treat a customer? I proceed to say that I won't be coming back to his establishment because of this customer service. Getting yelled at over the phone and being told I am "wasting his precious time over a $8 daal" I hang up. It's not the money, $8 is change to me, I can spend $100 without thinking, it is NOT the money, it's the experience. My order was too spicy for me to even think of eating and I just wanted a replacement so I could eat the naan and roti I bought with it. Calling your customer a scammer, when it was the second time i had ever ordered from this establishment is not a good business strategy. Yes, it's an $8 dish then it shouldn't be such a big deal to replace. After I hang up because I was apparently "wasting his time" I could not take the verbal harassment and hung up. I then get a phone call a few minutes later where I proceed to ask him "aren't I wasting your precious time?" he continues to yell over the phone about how spicy is spicy and how would he know what my spicy is, which again, I do understand however in my experience all establishments double check what a customer means by "spicy". Needless to say, I hang up. I will tell everyone, boycott this place, it does not deserve...

The worst place in place surrey in terms of customer service. I don’t even know what their food taste like because we hung up even before finishing out order. The lady taking our order was super rude and rushing us. She straight up said ‘sheti order karo’ to which we politely replied that we are and she blamed us for having a big order. She kept on arguing and we just said looks like you guys are in big rush and we can go somewhere else. I don’t understand how easily they are losing their customers even the ones who are trying the restaurant for the first time. I would give 0 stars if possible. They are literally scaring the people away with their harsh attitude and rude language. The employees need to learn the very basic things about customer service. The management’s behaviour reflects very well in the words and customer service behaviour of their employees. Would not recommend this...

Ok so I think this place started off well but there are a couple of things that make it mediocre at best. The food used to be better. When they first opened the food was above average but it seemed like care was taken with the little things. They used to give you more options with the vegetarian and non vegetarian platters. So you could mix and match and try different things every time you went and there was fresh garnish in the buttermilk. But now it's a limited selection and the salad has become onions and radish and the pickle condiment is gone. Plus the service has never been outstanding!! They give you your food and then ignore you. The water doesnt have ice or lemon and the wait staff is obviously untrained. When it's time to pay it's very abrupt, no chit chat, no..."how was the food??"..but you get the impression they don't...